Hospitality Marketing: Costa Coffee's Vanilla Flavor Plan

This report provides a comprehensive marketing plan for Costa Coffee, focusing on the introduction of a new vanilla flavored coffee. It begins with an introduction to the importance of marketing and then provides an overview of Costa Coffee, a leading UK coffee chain. The report details the development of the marketing plan, including a company overview, executive summary, vision and mission statements, and marketing objectives. A SWOT analysis is conducted to assess the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The report also examines the STP approach (segmentation, targeting, and positioning), financial budget considerations, and monitoring and control measures. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of marketing and its effective implementation. References include key marketing management texts.

Hospitality Marketing
Essential
Activity 2

Cover Content
• Introduction
• Basic Marketing plan
• Conclusion
• References

Introduction
Marketing function is very important part in every company. Marketing is an activity which
is related to promotion of products being offered by company to its prospective buyers.
There are various activities which are undertaken by companies in this function to attract
maximum number of customers. Main aim of marketing department is to increase overall
sales of company. Company considered in this report is Costa coffee, this is a largest coffee
chains in UK. Founded in 1971 it caters needs of coffee lovers of UK.

Development of Marketing Plan of
Company
Marketing plan of a company is developed so that company is able to analyses different
aspects and then based on that analysis they are bale top draw useful conclusions. In this
marketing plan Costa coffee is a company having coffee as its main product, now
company is planning to add a new innovation in their existing variant that is vanilla
flavored coffee.

Company overview
Costa coffee is largest coffee chains in UK, there are approx 200 restaurants and around 6000
machines of costa coffee present across world. Competitors of Costa includes Starbucks,
Nero and coffee republic. Costa has been able to create a position in market by offering
innovative taste to their customers.

Executive Summary
Costa coffee has been involved in using a strategy which is best quality products. They are
always involved in using quality as their marketing and promotional strategy. In this
scenario company is involved in launching a new product that is vanilla flavoured coffee, so
company should use a different marketing strategy that is they must distribute free samples.

Vision & Mission
Vision: Costa coffee has a decided vision that they want to attain a dominant in market, for this
company is planning to add anew variant to their existing product line.
Mission: Costa coffee has a mission that they want to achieve number one position in market
by providing highest quality products they want to provide quality based competition to their
competitors.

Marketing objective
Costa coffee has a marketing objective, that they are willing to expand
their product categories so that a new flavour can be offered to their
present customers who might experience and like the innovation
initiative by company. Also, this can help company in getting a
competitive advantage in market.

SWOT Analysis
Strength Weakness
 Costa is among largest coffee chains in
world their new variant will help them
in providing new flavour to their
customers. .
 They are having wide presence as they
have their outlets in 31 countries they
have been successful in creating a
premium image for their customers.
 Costa is at second position and there is
a big gap of number of outlets in
comparison with Starbucks which is
ranked top in range of coffee chains.
 Costa does not believe in much
techniques of advertising and
promoting their products instead they
believe in using high quality of their
products as their major strength
company should try to use some
marketing strategies in this case of
launching a new flavour. .

Opportunity Threat
 Costa has a very attractive opportunity
they must plan their expansion in those
countries in which they are presently not
having outlets.
 It can plan to have tie ups with other
companies such as recently they merged
with brand coffee nation merging with
another brand can help them in
acquisition of more customers.
 Dominance of market buy Starbucks is a
major threat to Costa for this reason they
are trying to launch a new flavour.
 There is a regional factor also which can
posse threat for cost such as people in
some countries have high preference for
tea rather than coffee.
 Lack of advertising and promotional
activities have also lead to decline in
brand value of Costa.

STP Approach
Segmentation: Costa coffee uses a segmentation strategy to segment their
market. They use mainly geographic and also demographic
segmentation.
Targeting: After segmenting market next step is to target that market. So
costa tries to target the chosen market present in 29 countries.
Positioning: Costa after segmenting of market and targeting it makes
efforts that it is able to ensure full satisfaction of their customers.

Financial budget
In terms of budget required by Costa for adding this new variant will be around £1.6
million to implement this plan. Finance department should make an attempt to minimize
their budget so that marketing and finance department can coordinate with each other.